Is this pilot lost? Unusual flight pattern?
#16
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Or for specific instrument arrivals (mostly lower traffic airports) or training. I can't count the number of holding patterns my instructors put me through during instrument training.
#17


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Heh, true, although in 9 years of instrument flying I've done precisely 3 holds for non-training or currency purposes. (Oddly enough, one was on my first flight after my instrument checkride.) Naturally, I’d expect an airline pilot to have a lot more than that, but it’s still not nearly as common as other methods of managing arrival traffic.
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This was actually from an episode of "Coach" from the 80s or 90s. They just won some Bowl in Hawaii and was on the way back to MN. Then one of the characters (the daughter?) told the Coach to flush the toilet when the plane is over LA since her ex decided to become an actor and moved to LA. Something like that...crazy how some of us remember airplane jokes
#20




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Nothing against OP, but this kind of lack of aviation knowledge is the primary reason I get from pilots why Channel 9 isn't turned on anymore 
I've heard similar comments when the flight map shows we're going over Alaska/North Pole vs a 'straight line' to Asia eg. "This pilot must not know where he's going"

I've heard similar comments when the flight map shows we're going over Alaska/North Pole vs a 'straight line' to Asia eg. "This pilot must not know where he's going"
#22
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It was a long time ago. There were two of us flying in a Cirrus SR20 or SR22. The pilot was one of three owners. The plane crashed 3 weeks later, killing one of the other owners. Don't ask me why.
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The controller(s) may well have been considering doing a vectored "hold" but were able to turn them back toward SFO earlier. It is quite rare to get an actual hold, published or unpublished, for anything other than practice in the US. If you do, it is because you are heading somewhere that had their acceptance rate take a dive and may have different direction flow. SAN gets this when they have to switch to Runway 9 for the ILS. That is one of the few time I'll see stacks of holds - to the north over Santa Catalina and east seems to either be over IPL or using a fix.



